Sothink SWF Quicker - Software Review by Diananet

An absolutely marvelous program with an unbelievable price tag. My decision
to review this program very quickly became
quite a remarkable journey into the world of Flash Animation and Movies.

My past experience working with graphics found me working with PhotoShop, Paint Shop
Pro and GoLive for animations. SWF Quicker has forever revolutionized how I
shall create graphics and animations in the future.

From the moment you open the program and are greeted with the "New From Template" wizard for making
flash buttons, a photo album, a banner or a blank document
you're hooked.

Clicking on the various wizards will bring up a screen of many
for you to select from and then quickly transport you through the process until
magically you're finished and have just created something in minutes that could've
taken you hours. Below is a screen shot of the program when first opened with the
template wizard greeting you.

Below is a template banner that can be instantly created with a few clicks of the mouse
using the banner wizard. There are 14 different banner templates and all you
have to do is replace the text with yours to magically have a new flash banner in less than a minute!

Below is an example flash menu made with the button wizard in less than a minute.
There are 15 different button templates to choose from and you have the choice of a
vertical or horizontal layout. Move your cursor over the menu below.

This menu's file size is only 6 kb.
Now that's impressive!

Below is an example picture album made with the album wizard in less than two minutes.
There are 15 different album templates to choose from and you can embed the photos
or link to them in a file that you export the album to.

The program wizards and tools magically do things for you or allow you to do things that
seem like pure magic.
My goal here is to show someone that has never touched a Flash Program before that they
can immediately start making stunning Flash effects with this program.

This was made with
4 quick clicks of the mouse. First - I selected the oval tool. Second - I
selected a linear fill in the Shape Panel. Third - I selected a red color in the Shape Panel. Fourth - I held the left mouse button and moved to the right on the
work area and let go. Just like magic I had the design I wanted and it was filled with the gradient
color that I had chosen.The three shapes to the left were also made in four clicks by
using the 3 tools beneath the Rectangle Tool.Round Rectangle Tool

Polygon Tool

Star Tool

As you create objects in the work area, the program
adds a Shape Symbol of them to the Library Panel.
The Symbols you make are reusable in other places in your movie. Instead of having several
slightly modified graphics of the same thing, the program lets you have as many modified
Instances of the same Symbol as you choose. Each modified copy of the Symbol is referred
to as an Instance of the original Symbol.

Each time you want to reuse a Symbol all you have to do is drag a copy of the
original Symbol from the Library Panel into the work area and the program automatically makes
a new Instance of the Symbol for you. This helps to keep your file size low.

Clicking "View Samples" in
the "Help" menu will transport
you to a page of 47 different flash examples. You can download the source file and
quickly edit and create your own versions.

One of the source files that you can download is a Guide
Line Animation. Easy animation is one of the things that makes SWF Quicker a magnificent program. I want to show you how easy it is to create your own animations
but we need to learn a little about layers and frames on the Timeline first.

Layers are like transparent sheets of drawing paper stacked on
top of each other. On all the blank areas of a layer you can see straight through it
to whatever is below it on the other layers. The pictures below represent three
separate layers and the final picture represents the layers stacked on top of each other.
Note that the baby pins have covered up the pacifier that was on the first layer.

The Timeline below shows two layers. The first layer is
named "2 Pigs" and the second layer is named "Baby Piggy". Both
layers have 35 frames with a beginning keyframe in frame 1 and an ending keyframe in
frame 35. Therefore, both layers will be visible from the beginning to
the end of the movie. The solid line from frame 1 - frame 34 in the "Baby Piggy" layer
indicates the presence of a motion tween being present in those frames.

Although very simple, the above represents a complete
animated flash movie. Very shortly, I will walk you through the steps to creating the above Timeline and show you the exported movie file. To make things quick and simple, I
started with two small pictures. 1 picture of two little pigs and 1 picture of a
single pig.

When you open up "SWF Quicker",
it starts a new file for
you to begin working with. When you export or publish your creation, you must then
give it a file name. The file starts with "Layer 1" which is a blank layer until you
put something on it. When you have created what you want to be on the first layer,
you should double click "Layer 1" and give it an appropriate name for that layer.

A Step by Step Guide to a quick Flash Animation:

. Start with a blank "Layer 1".

. Properties Panel - I picked a green background color and set the width to 250 and
the height to 150.

. Clicked "File" at top and chose "Import to Library" and loaded my 2 piggy pictures
into the Library Panel.

. Clicked in the first frame of "Layer 1". Then I selected the picture of 2 pigs
in the Library Panel and dragged into the work area.

. Double clicked "Layer 1" and named it "2 Pigs".

. Clicked the + symbol below the "2 Pigs" layer on the timeline to create a new blank layer.

. Double clicked the new "Layer 2" and named it "Baby Piggy".

. Clicked the first frame of the "Baby
Piggy" layer. Then I selected the single pig picture in the Library
Panel and dragged it onto the screen.

. Clicked in frame 35 of the "2 Pigs" layer and clicked "Insert" at top and
chose "Keyframe".

. Clicked in frame 35 of the "Baby Piggy" layer and clicked "Insert" at top and
chose "Keyframe".

. Clicked and dragged the baby pig picture and across the work area until it was behind
the other two pigs.

. Clicked in frame 34 of the "Baby Piggy" layer
and then clicked "Insert" at top and chose "Create Motion Tween".

. Clicked in frame 35 of the same layer and went to the "Action Panel" at bottom
and typed "stop();".

. Clicked in the first frame of the layer and then clicked the green "Preview" arrow
at the top to watch the flash animation.

. Clicked "Export Movie" at the top and named it "piggy.swf".

**Click the "Refresh Button" on
your browser to reload the animation to the left.**

Due to my
adding a stop action in the last frame, the animation plays once and stops.

A very special part of SWF Quicker are the 89 different built in effects that you can apply to
Symbols or letters in a word that have been broken apart into Symbols.

Click the "Refresh Button" to
watch the Symbol of butterflies change into flying butterflies.

Click the "Refresh Button" to
watch the letters of my name slide into place.

Right click on any symbol on the work area and choose "Create Effect..." select 1 from the 89 effects and its magically
applied to your Symbol.

It seems I've left the best for last. SWF Quicker is an absolutely incredible program. With SWF Quicker you can purchase Flash templates and
quickly edit the template for your own use.

SWF Quicker also installs a Flash Catcher into the
top of your internet browser. Using the catcher you can quickly save any Flash file
that is showing in your browser to your hard drive.

The best way to learn
how to do something is often by looking at an example. The internet is full of Flash
examples to help you learn how to create your own Files.

A truly AWESOME program and you will ENJOY it!

About Sothink SWF Quicker

Sothink SWF Quicker is the leading Flash editor which enables you to import and edit an existing SWF file directly or create Flash from scratch. You can create your own professional Flash games, Flash movies, interactive animations, text effects, slide shows, etc. It supports Flash 6 to Flash 10, Flash Lite 2.0/2.1/3.0 and AS 2.0/AS 3.0.

Testimonials

"I've never been able to do what I wanted to with any other program. With this one I can do exactly what I set out to do within a few minutes."

- Bobby Jones

"Some time ago, I was in need of editing some Flash SWF files, but couldn't afford a license for the whole software, and didn't even need it, so I started looking for a free software download. Instead of that, I found something even better - Sothink SWF Quicker, a good priced and fully featured tool that helped me get started really quick, so I solved all my problems and never looked back! "